The following is an
outline of several hundred years of Iranian history: as it is
often complicated, it is worthwhile taking some time to see how
it fits together. It is also possible that the political
divisions of the province may shed some light on the nature of
the pottery. Khurasan was a province that saw many uprisings and
passings of dynasties throughout the first 600 years or so of
Islamic rule, until the whole of this province was devastated by
the Mongol invasions in the early C13th.

There seems to have
been settlement on the site of Nishapur since far back in the
pre-historic past, and according to Islamic historians there was
a flourishing Sasanian city, built by Shapur I (c.240-270) or II
(c.307-379) hence its name, which fell to the army of
Uthman in the first years of the Islamic conquests, under
the command of Abdallah ibn Amir of Basra. He ruled
in Nishapur until he was driven out by the uprising across
Khurasan in 656-7; when Muawiya became the first Umayyad
ruler in 661, he reinstated Abdallah and commissioned him
to conquer Khurasan, making the region a Muslim province for the
first time . Nishapur was one of its capitals, alongside Merv,
Herat and Balkh.

Another Persian
rebellion was led by Abu Muslim in 748, who marched into Nishapur
carrying the black banner of the emergent Abbasid faction.
Two years later the Abbasids had established themselves as
caliphs in Baghdad, and Abu Muslim was confirmed as governor of
Khurasan, with his capital at Nishapur. He seems to have
initiated a huge building programme which first stimulated the
growth of the city. Nishapur increases in importance, and two
Abbasids were governors here before becoming caliphs. It
was the governor of Khurasan (Ali ibn Isa) who presented to
Harun al-Rashid the large gift of Chinese imperial porcelains (see Abbasid Ceramics Section), and this demonstrates the strategic
importance of the province on trade routes. Chinese porcelain was
found by the excavations of the Metropolitan Museum.

In the C9th Khurasan
seems to have become virtually autonomous, and this trend was
encouraged by the growth of dynasties which owed fealty to the
caliph in Baghdad but ruled independently of him. The first of
these were the Tahirids from 820 onwards, and their
capital was at Nishapur. They in fact built a palace-city on the
Abbasid model, that was set apart from the main city, and
was known as Shadyakh: the imperial court moved to Samarra in
836, so the Tahirid model would seem to precede the
Abbasid, which in turn came to be adopted by many of the
Islamic states which owed fealty to Baghdad. Remains of the
Tahirid palace were found by the Metropolitans excavations.

In 872, the Tahirids
were replaced by the Saffarids who expanded their sphere
of influence up into Khurasan, from Sistan in the south. They
also made Nishapur their capital and rebuilt the Tahirid palace,
only to be overrun early in the C10th by their powerful eastern
neighbours, the Samanids (874-999). This dynasty had been
placed in power in Transoxiana by the caliph al-Mamun, and
ruled first from Samarqand and then moved to Bukhara. After
defeating the Saffarids their "empire", with nominal
sanction from the Abbasids, extended from India to Iraq.
Khurasan was thus an international entrepôt, with merchants
coming not only from Iraq, India and Egypt, but also from Russia,
and Vikings from Scandinavia to trade with the Bulghars and
Khazars on the Caspian Sea.

Political instability
within the Samanid, Bulghar and Khazar empires at the end of the
C10th caused a decline in this international trade, and the
Samanids had to yield their authority to their western
neighbours, the Buyids, who were in the ascendant over the
Abbasid caliph. By this stage factions within the Samanid
ruling class had led to the supremacy of the Ghaznavids:
this Turkish dynasty started out as servants of the Samanids, and
Mahmud of Ghazna (969-1030) had risen to command their army. He
established himself as their successor, and was recognised by the
Caliph al-Qadir in 999. The Ghaznavids were great patrons of
architecture and the arts, and adorned their cities with palaces,
pavilions and courts.

In 1037, the Ghaznavids seceded to the Saljuqs, another
tribe of Turkish origin which migrated south into Khurasan: in
1038, they seized Nishapur, and Tughril Beg declared himself
Sultan in Shadyakh. By 1055, the Saljuqs had captured Baghdad and
controlled the caliphate. This period seems to see the absolute
height of Nishapurs prosperity. However, early in the C12th
a series of natural disasters (earthquakes in 1115 and 1145) and
pillaging hordes (the Ghuzz Turks in 1153) decimated the
city, and the Saljuq governor resettled the population in the
palace-city of Shadyakh. In 1180 the Khwarazm-Shah
assassinated the Saljuq governor and established himself as ruler
in Nishapur, from where he extended his domination over the old
Samanid territories, to Samarqand and Bukhara.

This was the
political situation until the devastation by the Mongols.
Ten years after this invasion the city, by now much smaller and
decreasing steadily in wealth and importance, seems to have
suffered another earthquake and consequently another
resettlement; the same happened in 1268, and again in 1406, after
which time the city of Nishapur moved to its present site: the
Great Mosque of the modern city was built in 1494.